IFTE Conference

April 21, 2011

The Secret History of the Common core Standards

From 2006 Reading Between the Lines: What the ACT Reveals About College Readiness in Reading

ACT Reading Test

Questions on the Reading Test focus on five kinds of textual

elements: 1) main idea or author’s approach, 2) supporting details,

3) relationships (sequential, comparative, or cause and effect),

4) meaning of words, and 5) generalizations and conclusions.

Text Complexity

Texts used in the ACT Reading Test reflect three degrees of

complexity: uncomplicated, more challenging, and complex.

Complex Texts: A Closer Look

A complex text is typically complex in the

following ways:

▼ Relationships: Interactions among ideas or characters in

the text are subtle, involved, or deeply embedded.

▼ Richness: The text possesses a sizable amount of highly

sophisticated information conveyed through data or literary

devices.

▼ Structure: The text is organized in ways that are elaborate

and sometimes unconventional.

▼ Style: The author’s tone and use of language are often intricate.

▼ Vocabulary: The author’s choice of words is demanding and

highly context dependent.

▼ Purpose: The author’s intent in writing the

text is implicit and sometimes ambiguous.

Common Core Standards Accepted June 2, 2010

The most important implication of this study was that a pedagogy focused only

on “higher-order” or “critical” thinking was insufficient to ensure that students were ready for college and careers: What students could read, in terms of its complexity, was at least as important as what they could do with what they

read.

Although legitimate questions can be raised about the tools used to measure text complexity (e.g., Mesmer, 2008), what is relevant in these numbers is the general, steady decline—over time, across grades, and substantiated by several sources—in the difficulty and likely also the sophistication of content of the texts students have been asked to read in school since 1962.

(1) Qualitative dimensions of text complexity. In the Standards,

qualitative dimensions and qualitative factors refer to those aspects of text complexity best measured or only measurable by an attentive human reader, such as levels of meaning or purpose; structure; language conventionality and

clarity; and knowledge demands.

(2) Quantitative dimensions of text complexity. The terms

quantitative dimensions and quantitative factors refer to

those aspects of text complexity, such as word length or frequency,

sentence length, and text cohesion, that are difficult

if not impossible for a human reader to evaluate efficiently,

especially in long texts, and are thus today typically measured

by computer software.

(3) Reader and task considerations. While the prior two

elements of the model focus on the inherent complexity of

text, variables specific to particular readers (such as motivation,

knowledge, and experiences) and to particular tasks

(such as purpose and the complexity of the task assigned

and the questions posed) must also be considered when determining whether a text is appropriate for a given student.

Such assessments are best made by teachers employing their professional judgment, experience, and knowledge

of their students and the subject.

(1) Levels of Meaning (literary texts) or purpose (informational texts).

(2) Structure.

(3) Language Conventionality and Clarity.

(4) Knowledge Demands

Levels of Meaning (literary texts) or purpose (informational texts)

• Single level of meaning > Multiple levels of meaning

• Explicitly stated purpose > Implicit purpose, may be hidden or obscure

Structure

• Simple > Complex

• Explicit > Implicit

• Conventional > Unconventional (chiefly literary texts)

• Events related in chronological order > Events related out of chronological order (chiefly literary texts)

• Traits of a common genre or subgenre > Traits specific to a particular discipline (chiefly informational texts)

• Simple graphics > Sophisticated graphics

• Graphics unnecessary or merely supplementary to understanding the text > Graphics essential to understanding the text and may provide information not otherwise conveyed in the text

Language Conventionality and Clarity

• Literal > Figurative or ironic

• Clear > Ambiguous or purposefully misleading

• Contemporary, familiar > Archaic or otherwise unfamiliar

• Conversational > General academic and domain-specific

Knowledge Demands: Life Experiences (literary texts)

• Simple themes > Complex or sophisticated themes

• Single themes > Multiple themes

• Common, everyday experiences or clearly fantastical situations > Experiences distinctly different from one’s own

• Single perspective > Multiple perspectives

• Perspective(s) like one’s own  Perspective(s) unlike or in opposition to one’s own

Knowledge Demands: Cultural/Literary Knowledge (chiefly literary texts)

• Everyday knowledge and familiarity with genre conventions required > Cultural and literary knowledge useful

• Low intertextuality (few if any references/allusions to other texts) > High intertextuality (many references/allusions to other

texts)

Knowledge Demands: Content/Discipline Knowledge (chiefly informational texts)

• Everyday knowledge and familiarity with genre conventions required > Extensive, perhaps specialized discipline-specific content knowledge required

• Low intertextuality (few if any references to/citations of other texts) > High intertextuality (many references to/citations of other texts)

Quantitative Measures of Text Complexity

A number of quantitative tools exist to help educators assess aspects of text complexity that are better measured by algorithm than by a human reader.

Numerous formulas exist for measuring the readability of various types of texts. Such formulas, including the widely used Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level test, typically use word length and sentence length as proxies for semantic and syntactic complexity, respectively (roughly, the complexity of the meaning and sentence structure).

Like Dale-Chall, the Lexile Framework for Reading, developed by MetaMetrics, Inc., uses word frequency and sentence length to produce a single measure, called a Lexile, of a text’s complexity.

A nonprofit service operated at the University of Memphis, Coh-Metrix attempts to account for factors in addition to those measured by readability formulas. The Coh-Metrix system focuses on the cohesiveness of a text—basically, how tightly the text holds together.

Reader and Task Considerations

Numerous factors associated with the individual reader are relevant when determining whether a given text is appropriate for him or her. The RAND Reading Study Group identified many such factors in the 2002 report Reading for Understanding:

The reader brings to the act of reading his or her cognitive capabilities (attention, memory, critical analytic ability, inferencing, visualization); motivation (a purpose for reading, interest in the content, self-efficacy as a reader); knowledge (vocabulary and topic knowledge, linguistic and discourse knowledge, knowledge of Common Core State Standards for english language arts & literacy in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects appendix A | 8 comprehension strategies); and experiences. As part of describing the activity of reading, the RAND group also named important task-related variables, including the reader’s purpose (which might shift over the course of reading), “the type of reading being done, such as skimming (getting the gist of the text) or studying (reading the text with the intent of retaining the information for a period of time),” and the intended outcome, which could include “an increase in knowledge, a solution to some realworld problem, and/or engagement with the text.”4

Implications

This is a test prep curriculum

The introduction of a previously unseen standard nonexistent in any state’s previous standards is a means of endorsing a particular agenda

From Harvey Daniels:

Common Core Exemplars
Avg. publication dates of Common Core exemplar texts:
K-1 1963,
4-5 1937,
6-8 NF 1895,
9-10 1801,
HS NF 1897.

*Text Complexity promotes a traditional notion of what is a text

*Critical literacy is seen as unproductive and not of use

*Text Complexity lacks a theoretical perspective

*Don has referred to Text Complexity as a Trojan horse and that there is a strong workplace agenda. Teachers are more and more marginalized as technicians traing our student s to “keep the machines” running when we’ve gone.

*We are waiting for the second shoe to drop and that is the assessment of Text Complexity

"Teachers have less autonomy these days than ever before.  The predominant version of school reform, with its emphasis on "accountability" and its use of very specific curriculum standards enforced by tests, proceeds from the premise that teachers need to be told what, and how, to teach.  At the same time, this movement confuses excellence with uniformity ("All students in ninth grade will . . . ") and with mere difficulty (as if that which is more "rigorous" were necessarily better).  It's now reaching its apotheosis with an initiative to impose the same core standards on every public school classroom in the nation.  This effort has been sponsored primarily by corporate executives, politicians, and test manufacturers, but, shamefully, certain education organizations, including NCTE, have failed to take a principled stand in opposition.  Instead, they have eagerly accepted whatever limited role in the design of standards they're permitted by the corporate sponsors, thereby giving the impression that this prescriptive, one-size-fits-all approach to schooling enjoys legitimacy and the support of educators."

Kohn, A. How to create nonreaders. English Journal, Fall 2010.  Available at http://alfiekohn.org/articles.htm#null and in Feel-Bad Education (2011).